328



Mr. Althea R. Sherman,



EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING HUMMING

BIRDS DURING SEVEN SUMMERS.


By Althea R. Sherman,


National , Iowa


[Reprinted by permission from The Wilson Bulletin No. 85, Yol. 25, No. 4,

December, 1913. Copyrighted, 1913, by Lynds Jones. Read at the thirty-

first Annual Congress of the American Ornithologists’ Union, New York

City, Nov. 11, 1913].


The experiments herein described were begun without intending

them to bear upon the question of the food naturally sought by the

ruby-throated humming bird (Archilochus colubris) ; the original

aim of the feeding was to attract the humming birds about the yard

in the hope that some time they would remain to nest there. The

experiments have been conducted on independent lines without

knowledge of any similar work that was being done by others until

the autumn of 1912, except in one instance, where special acknow¬

ledgments are due to Miss Caroline G. Soule, of Brookline, Mass, who

in Bird Lore for October, 1900, described her success in feeding

humming birds from a vial, which she had placed in the heart of an

artificial trumpet flower made from Whatman paper and painted

with water colours. This suggestion of using artificial flowers was

taken, but more durable ones were made from white oilcloth, their

edges were stiffened with one strand of wire taken from picture cord,

and they were carefully painted with oil colours, the first to represent

a nasturtium and the second a tiger lily.


In August of 1907 upon the appearance of a humming bird

about our flowers the artificial nasturtium, tacked to a stick, was

placed near a clump of blooming phlox, and its bottle w T as filled with

a sirup made of granulated sugar dissolved in water. The next day a

female rubythroat was seen searching the depths of tiger lilies that

grew north of the house ; as she flew to the east of the house she was

instantly followed, and was seen drinking from the artificial flower

for the space of about a minute, after which she flew to a rosebush,

wiped her bill, and rested a brief time before flying away. This was

about noon. She returned at intervals of about a half hour for the

next three hours, then at 3.10 o’clock she came back to search quite

thoroughly the phlox blossoms, this being the first time she had paid



